Bad Taffing Romance
by Pagan Besu
Summary: A what if story: Lieutenant Mosely, betrayed by her own precinct, quits the City Watch and decides to take the law into her own hands as a vigilante. Her actions catch the attention of a familiar face in the city, and things start to get...complicated.
1. The Vice of Trust

Everything just spun so out of control so fast, she couldn't even begin to attempt at puzzling out where it all began.

First it was siding with the Pagans behind Sheriff Truart's back. Risky yes, but the ends justified the means she always thought. Mosely had to be ever cautious, never give Truart a reason to distrust her, but it was quickly becoming apparent that it was becoming a harder thing to do with each passing day. She knew the Sheriff was on her heels, and she knew it was only a matter of time before she got caught. The only thing she could hope for was to do _some_ good before she was locked up for good.

After that it was trusting her partner too much. Her and Hagen had always been close partners, working together to keep crime off the streets. Perhaps all that time spent together created some unnecessary sexual tension, made her start to drop her guard and trust him a little too much.

Trust.

That's what really did her in in the end.

She trusted Hagen. So much so that she started to confess things to him. Her worry about the Mechanist order, her pity for the pagans, even her concern that Truart wasn't the great Sheriff everyone thought he was.

"I know he's been doing his best." She told him one night during a patrol, keeping an every watchful eye out for any trouble.

"Then what's the problem?" Was his response, glancing at her with mild curiosity.

Mosely shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. "The problem is," she exhaled a heavy, almost frustrated sigh, "Well have you looked at the men who are working for him?"

"Good, hard working officers."

"For taff's sake, Hagen!" She cried out, stopping her patrol and turning on her heel to face him. "He's hiring criminals!" It went without saying that the both of them knew some of the new recruits, having put behind bars by this very duo.

Hagen just shrugged her off. "Community service. Pay off their debts to society. I think it's ingenious really."

She wanted to slap him so hard. Try to bring any kind of sense into his head to see what's going on. "So thieves, murderers, and rapists get free roam of the city while innocent pagans are killed on sight? You don't see anything wrong with that?" It was maddening, really. Why was she the only damn officer who was starting to see gaping holes in Truart's brilliant idea for a 'better city'?

Hagen shook his head. "You think too much of this, Mosely." He said, a hand on her shoulder. "I worry about you. You're going to either stress yourself out and get sick or wind up in deep trouble."

Mosely just shrugged him off and fell silent, she was going to have none of this fed to her tonight. "Worry about me? If you cared you'd help me."

She was right, and he knew it. "All right, fine. What can I do to help?"

It was idiotic how much she trusted him. She would have seen the trap coming a mile away! Still, she felt that if there was anyone in the entire force that could help her, it was the man she'd been working side-by-side with for years. Her plan was to seek out pagans, as many as she could, and hide them. She had plenty of room in her cellar to keep them the night, then she would help them to flee into the forests, back to their own territory.

Her final mistake was trusting Hagen with this information. They spent the entire shift finding and escorting pagans to her home then getting them settled before searching for any more. Red flags should have been going up, but she was too tired and too proud of her work of protecting the innocent that she didn't even notice. It felt like she was really helping those in need.

It wasn't until they reached the pagan village that things went terribly wrong.

Truart had been alerted of the plan before Mosely left for the night, and he in turn alerted the mechanists that one of his Lieutenants was close to finding a Pagan settlement.

Without her even realizing it, Mosely had led an army of Mechanists right to a pagan village. And she could do nothing but watch as every man, woman, and child was slaughtered before her very eyes.

If one were to ask her. She would probably say that's when this whole mess started to spiral out of control


	2. On Her Own

There was no way she was going to stay with the watch after that. Not only had the Sheriff organized the slaughtering of an entire village, she knew damn well who was the one to alert him in the first place. Hagen was the only one she had told, and she was pretty certain none of the pagans would have told Truart anything.

To think that the very people who were supposed to protect the innocent was assisting Mechanists in slaughtering entire families was enough to make her sick.

Was this what the city watch was reduced to now? Did Truart really think this was for the good of the people? It was just baffling that the city was going downhill so quickly while the "good Sheriff" sat in his office thinking the city was getting cleaned up.

Innocent blood was spilled that night, and she wasn't going to stand for it anymore.

"Sir, I need to speak with you." She told Truart after catching him alone. "It's urgent."

Truart grinned at her, something wicked in his eyes. "Lieutenant Mosely. I have to thank you for helping clear up part of the weed problem last night." His calm, coy voice made her blood want to boil over with rage.

"With all due respect, I fail to see how slaughtering women and children like that was clearing up any problems." She snapped, but immediately straightened up and gave him a salute, apologizing immediately for speaking so callously to him. Remember Mosely, she told herself, like it or not he's still your superior right now.

She really didn't want to anger him. Getting herself locked up for insubordination, even if it was for a day or two, was really not going to help anyone.

"That village was nothing more than a clan of filthy menaces." Truart responded, waving off Mosely's little outburst. "Just another problem we don't have to worry about."

Mosely felt her body tense up with anger, dropping her arms to her side. It's not like she expected his response to be any different, but it was disgusting how little he cared for human lives, even if they were pagan. "Sir, there were children in the village, and they were slaughtered like animals."

He looked back at her, grinning again. "Like the animals they were." he chuckled, amused at his own little 'joke' "They would have grown up, Mosely. Once they were adults they would be just as much a threat as their parents."

This conversation was making her sick. Something vile rising up to the back of her throat with each cold, callous word that slid from that revolting snake's lips. "If you think of it that way, we should just slaughter everyone in the city too. The children here have the potential to grow up to be thieves, murderers, you name it."

She hated Truart with a passion, and almost prayed he got that vibe from her with this conversation.

In fact, he did. After clearing his throat, he stopped and turned to her, hands folded behind his back. "You know, I've been getting the feeling you've become less than trustworthy."

The sickness was replaced almost immediately with a tight knot in her stomach. "I would do anything to protect those in need, Sheriff Truart." She stood proud before him, not breaking eye contact. "But right now I don't see how hunting down pagans and killing them on sight is doing any good for anyone." Her eyes narrowed as she spoke to him in a tough and almost disgusted tone.

Truart's response was a chuckle. "I always had a feeling you were a pagan sympathizer."

"I don't sympathize with pagans, sir." The sir was spoken harshly, spat out like venom. "I sympathize with any helpless person or persons getting unfairly treated." She didn't like where this was going. Not one bit. "And I'm against anyone or any group that persecutes the innocent."

Hagen had betrayed her, Truart had used her...and for what? So the Sheriff could suck up to the Mechanists? So he'd be more in their favor? She couldn't understand this obsession for some new Hammerite branch or whatever it was, but she'll be damned if she was going to stick around anymore.

With a swift motion she spun around on her heel, braid lashing through the air like an angry whip. "Do what you want with my things, sir. You won't be seeing me around this building anymore."

And with that she stormed out of the station, vowing to find her own manner of justice from now on. One that didn't involve the watch, Truart, or the filthy Mechanists.

She was going to help the innocent, no matter what it took.


End file.
